Beckley, Oxfordshire

The course of the former Roman road that linked Dorchester on Thames with Alchester passes through the village. Part of it is now a bridleway. In the 19th century the remains of a Roman villa were found beside the road to Upper Park Farm east of the village. Artefacts from the villa are held in the Ashmolean Museum. ==Manor==

Until the Norman conquest of England the manor of Beckley was one of many that belonged to Saxon Wigod, thegn of Wallingford. After the conquest the Norman baron Robert D'Oyly married Wigod's daughter Ealdgyth and thereby acquired Wigod's estates. D'Oyly then gave a number of the manors to his brother-in-arms Roger d'Ivry. These included Beckley, which d'Ivry then made the caput of his estates. Beckley remained with Roger's heirs until early in the 12th century, but the d'Ivry family seems to have died out by about 1120. ==Deer park==

Bernard of St. Valery had a deer park at Beckley, the earliest known record of which dates from 1175 or 76. His son Thomas had it enclosed with a stone wall, built between 1192 and 97. In 1229 the Earl of Cornwall had the park stocked with deer and a deer-leap built. When the manor reverted to the Crown, Beckley Park became a Royal deer park. When Edward I was fighting the First War of Scottish Independence (1296 onwards) he ordered the park's keeper to repair its wall, pale and ditch. Jacobean panelling was added to the parlour in the 17th century but otherwise the house remains very largely as it was built. It is a Grade I listed building. is the home of Amanda Feilding and the main headquarters of her Beckley Foundation, which is doing research on the benefits of certain types of drugs, including cannabis and LSD. The property is not open to the public. By 1628 the deer park had been broken up and enclosed as farmland. The farmstead of Beckley Park Farm (or Lower Park Farm) was the Tudor house Sir John Williams had built. The farmstead of Upper Park Farm is on the upper part of the hill, beside the springs whose stream fed the moats of the former lodge and then flowed across Otmoor to join the River Ray. That of Middle Park Farm is between the two, beside former fish ponds that the stream fed before reaching the lodge. ==Parish church==

The Church of England parish church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was originally Norman, but was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries. The interior has a number of 14th- and 15th-century wall paintings including a Virgin and Child, an Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the weighing of souls, the torments of the damned and 15th-century paintings of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and a Doom. By 1552 the tower had four large bells and the church also had a Sanctus bell. Richard Keene of Woodstock cast the treble bell in 1650 and the third bell in 1654. Richard III Chandler of Drayton Parslow, Buckinghamshire cast the fourth bell in 1705 and Henry III Bagley of Chacombe, Northamptonshire cast the second bell in 1707, possibly at his foundry at Witney. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the present tenor bell in 1881. For technical reasons the bells are currently unringable. The rectory and advowson of Beckley evolved into a second manor, which was bought by the Shillingford alias Izard family in 1568. Memorials in Beckley church to the family include one dedicated to John Izard, 'Spanish merchant,' who died in 1694. Dorothy Izard of this family married the Rev. Nicholas Levet, priest of Westbourne, West Sussex and fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, who is buried in the chancel of the parish church. The Izard family seem to have sold the rectory to the Duke of Bedford. The Shillingford alias Izard family also held the nearby manor of Charlton-on-Otmoor. ==Saint Domnanuerdh==

In the early Middle Ages Beckley was reputedly the home of Saint Domnanuerdh, a Saxon saint known only from the Hagiography list of John Leland. ==Amenities==

Beckley Church of England Primary School is a Church of England primary school and a village hall. There is a community-owned pub, The Abingdon Arms, which is owned by Beckley & Area Community Benefit Society. ==See also==